Newsletter Archive: Finding Passion + Romance Within
Dear Reader,
It has been 686 days since I’ve had sex and 339 days since I’ve been kissed. My last experiences with romance and passion left me vulnerable and, honestly, I’m still learning to trust myself and my decisions again. This countdown is coming on the heels of my birthday and turning 44 in t-minus 9 days.
This is quite an opening statement of truth.
I hate math. But this is the math that sometimes happens in my brain. And, if I hold on to numbers, I feel like I’m behind on life and love. And, yes, it can be a pretty shitty feeling. And, yes, it’s narrow thoughts like these that can cause passion to die. But somehow, in the last week, I got myself out of my mental math hole.
I managed to find passion and romance within myself and my surroundings.
Why am I telling you this? 1) because I overshare and 2) I can’t imagine that I am the only person (single, married, divorced or widowed) who has ever felt a lack of passion and romance at some point in their life and thought it had to do with physical contact, lust or a lack there of.
What does it look like to think about passion and romance outside of getting it on? Outside of a partner or partnership? What is it to let yourself well up with experience, curiosity, wonder and reflection - solely for you? How often do we use things like sex or dating - and call it passion - when we actually have a longing for more?
Let’s face it, we can’t count on a partner, relationships, knockin’ random boots, or work to fill us with passion. And, furthermore, to distill passion down to sex and kissing is to oversimplify a very large emotion with a lot of facets.
This week I realized that I was the primary killer of my own passion. When a class was unexpectedly cancelled, I was annoyed. Then, soon after, I lost a writing piece that I was working on. I was being a brute and I was slaying my days with my own thoughts and a numbers game. My mind was in overdrive “You planned a whole class and it took 3 hours, now it’s not happening. WTF?!” “Go and get your writing done, Tina!”
Do you think you might be guilty of the same thing?
My passion problem had absolutely nothing to do with the heat, my raging hormones or lack of physical contact - that’s all fleeting. It was an inside job. I realized that as healthy as routine is, because it has helped me get shit done my whole life, it was important to let it go. In the space of things not going according to plan, my spirit was resurrected. I think this is where true romance lives and where passion prevails.
When was the last time you stopped to breathe? The last time you let go of your routine or an idea of what you should be doing and said, fuck it? The last time you really took a look around you?
So, on Sunday, instead of going to the market and spending the day cooking, I decided to go to a cafe. I refused to wear a bra or underwear because I did not want to feel bound (undoubtedly, past girdle trauma). I walked in and ordered an almond croissant (that I had been craving, but was denying myself) and a large iced mocha. I plopped myself down at a communal table, typed, sipped, ate, and let the sweat roll down my back and butt - right on to that communal bench. I smiled victoriously as I played with words and let my mind roam.
Writing, food, markets and cooking are my passion; and I also realized that while this is true - they can’t be rote and repetitive, expected and confined. Passion is free. It is free from attachment and it does not possess us or anyone else. And to stay boundless, free and unexpected - we need breaks. Call it passion, wonder or curiosity - I think they’re part of the same club - and we need all of them to feel alive.
That’s passion, the simple act of feeling alive.
How will you fill yourself up this week? How will you find passion within and in the world around you; beyond the people sitting beside you or in the days counted between sex and kisses? Can you do what your passionate about in a new way? Can you stop what your doing long enough to realize that you’re holding yourself a passionless prisoner?
And, as for trusting myself again, I know that I’ll get there.
xo
Tina